E-Philanthropy

Imagine if your next online fundraising campaign had to include an additional $5 fee per donation because someone had patented the very technique you use to ask your supporters to reach out to friends and family members.

What’s more, imagine that out of every $50 donation you collect, 10 percent of it would go to a company that hired a patent lawyer and got its application through the overloaded and understaffed U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. That’s $5 that never would be used for your mission.

How has a recent investment in new Internet software affected your organization’s fundraising?

There’s no doubt that nonprofit Web sites have become serious branding and revenue channels. Compared to recent years, most organizations now are seeing double-digit increases in the number of monthly Web visits, some even a rise in donations, new members and membership renewal.

While an increase in Web traffic certainly is a positive indicator, it isn’t the most vital metric for an organization looking to generate online revenue or increase online-visitor engagement.

For more than 20 years, Volunteers of America has operated a donation program for automobiles, boats and recreational vehicles with its local chapters and participating 501(c)(3) organizations. Recently, the spiritually based social-services charity has taken its successful turnkey vehicle-donation program online — and in a big way.

When CBS and NBC refused to run its 30-second television commercial, the development office at the United Church of Christ was more than a little miffed.

The ad, which employed images of bulbous nightclub security guards standing behind velvet ropes in front of a church — railed against the perceived non-inclusiveness of Christian faiths. In rejecting it in early 2004, the networks said the message was too controversial and amounted to “issue advocacy.”

For more than 15 years, the Center for Economic Growth has operated as a regional economic- and business-development organization in New York’s Tech Valley region, which spans 18 counties. Through much of its his-tory, CEG had no consistent way to communicate with its funding partners, members, clients or the general community. Then, a few years ago, it switched to e-mail marketing.

How Do You Plan to Use the Internet as Part of Your Next Special-Event Fundraiser?

The next time one of your donors performs a Web search, your organization could see 50 cents in gross revenue.

Freelanthropy, a new online-services provider founded to help nonprofits develop branding and communications solutions through Web publishing, e-mail marketing, and search and navigation, has developed the Freelanthropy Toolbar for donors and prospects to download and use for free, with all sponsored-search revenue and affiliate-merchant sales split evenly between Freelanthropy and the individual user’s preferred charity.

Puzzled about why your online donors aren’t renewing? Simple ... they’re different, those donors who give online. For a time, prevailing conventional wisdom was that a donor acquired online is most likely to renew online.

And the great hope was that online donors would be so much cheaper to re-solicit because we wouldn’t have to spend money on postage and printing and production … we could just e-mail them!

Simply put, people who are comfortable shopping and paying bills via the Internet are more likely to donate money online to your nonprofit organization, says Michael Johnston, president of Toronto-based nonprofit consultancy Hewitt and Johnston and author of “The Fund Raiser’s Guide to the Internet” and “The Nonprofit Guide to the Internet.”